


I want my wife and daughter back, said the Hound

by lemonbalmlemonverbena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 09:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonbalmlemonverbena/pseuds/lemonbalmlemonverbena
Summary: Angsty drabble; show canon; a window into the mind of Sandor Clegane on the journey by sea from Dragonstone to White Harbor.The title is a line from a Brienne chapter where the words are spoken by a Sandor Clegane narrative stand-in (Lem Lemoncloak wearing the Hound's old helmet).Warnings: Sandor swears and has impure thoughts about a woman.





	I want my wife and daughter back, said the Hound

**_Aboard the Targaryen flagship_ Meraxes _, sailing north from Dragonstone to White Harbor._**

If he could change one day from his past, it wouldn’t be the day Gregor burned him alive. It wouldn’t be all the days he’d failed them. It would be the day he’d killed that bloody butcher’s boy. He should have killed the mother, too. The mother was a ginger, like her son—that’s all he remembered of her now. And yet, she surely remembered him. She’d been a witch, no doubt, and put some curse on him.

The night he killed her boy was the last night he’d slept without dreaming of Ned Stark’s daughters—first the little bird and after a time, his wolf-girl, too.

Sandor Clegane growled softly into the sea air.

He’d fallen into the habit, over the years, of indulging himself about them. He’d never see them again, so what did it matter?

They were dead, or he was dead, so what harm could it possibly do to name them _his_ in his dreams, in his murmured recollections of the handful of days when he’d been their dog?

His delusions could do them no harm if they were all dead.

 _Mine_ was the angry refrain, the voiceless chorus, that had hummed in his head every time he’d seen her in the company of those wretches in King’s Landing, or when he’d seen the little one trailing after those brigands.

It wasn’t that he hated their guardians—although he did—it was that when he saw them in the care of other men a kind of unaccountable jealousy overtook him.

_Pathetic. And so damnably dangerous. Fuck you, Stark._

He hated Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell with everything in him. _Stupid stupid stupid Ned fucking Stark._

_You bloody honorable fool, you let a little cunt like Joffrey take your head._

_Why did you leave them behind for the likes of me?_

He left those girls alone to suffer any—no, every—bypassing evil.

And yet, he’d done the same.

What did he have in common with Ned Stark? He couldn’t keep his girls safe.

He’d meant to carry away her away from Lord Stannis and the Lannisters and instead she’d broken him like so many ships on the rocks of Blackwater Bay.

And Arya?

He’d gotten close with her. He’d done right by her, he thought. Tried to get her to the brother and the mother. Tried to get her to that ghoul haunting the Eyrie.

He wasn’t even going to leave her with the likes of Lysa Arryn if she didn’t want to stay. He’d have been her dog and kept her safe still.

He’d failed. He mocked the weak and the sick and the fearful, but the truth was he was afraid of her and her sister with that damn red hair and those blue eyes.

Afraid.

Too afraid to let her burn him.

Too afraid to offer her anything but ale and roast meat and a white pony and his bloody sword.

She had her own sword, what did she need with the likes of him, anyhow?

_Mine._

He wished he could go back. He would be their dog if they would have him.

But they didn’t even need that anymore.

Arya was at Winterfell. Brienne of fucking Tarth had come south from there to represent the interests of House Stark at the parley.

The bastard brother had deserted the Night’s Watch—good for him—and been named King in the North. _Good for him._ And now he was on a ship with the bastard and Brienne, and he thought he would break from the tension between wanting to know and being unable to ask. He’d cut off his own hand before he asked the Northman or the big bitch about Sansa Stark.

 _My wife_.

She was an important person. Why wouldn’t _one_ of these damn people gossip about her in his hearing?

_She’s probably years dead._

_No, you’d know. You’d feel that._

He had no standing. None. He was a soldier in the war against the dead. He’d do his part with the obsidian dagger and hatchet he carried everywhere now. He’d end as many of them as he could before they got in.

_That farmer had the right of it._

_Before they come for Arya I’ll cut her throat myself. She won’t suffer, not while I still breathe. I owe her that much. My girl. My little girl._

_FUCK._

He’d had discipline once. He’d trained and worked every day for most of his life. He thought himself a hard man, but when it came to...

_My wife. My daughter. They’re mine._

He gripped the railing of the ship, wishing that he could break it or something, anything, that could bear up under the weight of his frustration until it didn’t anymore and then would crack, sending splinters into the skin of his hands.

He closed his eyes. He saw her as she was that last night in the Red Keep. Not in her room, but before. So lovely in the firelight.

_“Of course, you'll be in the vanguard. They say my brother Robb always goes where the fighting is thickest, and he's only a pretender.”_

It still made him chuckle. He sometimes thought Joffrey saw more of the real Sansa than anyone. She sensed that he was feeble; it brought out the wolf in her. She was too alone to fight him head-on, yet she nipped at him when she dared.

_“Or maybe he’ll give me yours.”_

He knew Tywin was dead. He knew Joffrey was dead. He knew Tommen was dead. And yet no one ever saw fit to mention Sansa Stark.

She must be dead. Dead and forgotten like all the rest of the Starks, save Arya and Jon fucking Snow. No one would even tell him the story of how the bastard had taken the crown of winter; his birthright, as much as anyone’s, but the Boltons had Winterfell last he heard and he doubted Lord Roose was much for kneeling to bastard boys.

_No, you’d feel it. The dreams would be different. The butcher’s wife saw to it—that Ned Stark’s daughters, dead or alive, haunt you all the days of your life._

If the little bird were dead he’d see her despoiled body dumped in the mud, mouldering in a lichyard somewhere, hanging from a rope until her neck rotted through and she fell to the ground.

The ship shifted slightly under his feet and he opened his eyes. The sea at night was black as oblivion itself, only the dome of stars above him, edged by a front of high clouds ahead. This was surely the Shivering Sea by now.

Braavos lay to the east. The little wolf had once told him she had friends in Braavos. How many times had he wondered what she’d meant by that? Her dancing master was dead. Who were these friends she claimed?

_Don’t trust them. Be careful, girl._

_Stay with me, girl. I’ll keep you safe._

But of course she couldn’t hear him. And it wasn’t true, in any case.

To the west, somewhere in the distance, would be the Fingers. Baelish Keep. Littlefinger.

A shiver passed through Sandor Clegane’s body. Was it the icy wind sweeping down from the Land of Always Winter, or something else?

He suddenly had a flash of her at the Tourney of the Hand. He’d often thought of that tiny fool girl applauding for him, red rose in hand, but he suddenly realized Littlefinger was there beside her all along.  

The King’s Master of Coin and Queen Cersei were two of a kind. They both stank of lies.

He spit over the rail. _That filthy whoremonger._

He’d like to cross paths with the little weasel again. He was a free dog now, and sometimes wild dogs kill for no good reason anyone can see.

Somewhere overhead, one of dragons called out, and his brother replied. Were they brothers? Sisters?

Sisters.

Sansa Stark.  _She's too young for you, fool. Too important. Too beautiful. Too gentle._

Arya Stark.  _She'll kill you on sight._

He didn’t hardly remember ever seeing them together, although he supposed they’d both been at that tournament with their lord father. When he’d gone to find Sansa during the slaughter of the Northmen, he’d have taken the little one, too, if he could, but she was nowhere to be found. Better at running than her sister.

They didn’t have a thing in common but for blood.

And him.

_You love them both, dog, and they’ll never be yours._

Stop _thinking about them. The witch has your dreams, but with eyes open you should be able to see the truth of it._

And then he clenched his eyes shut again because the lie felt so much better than the truth, and he saw Arya at a feast, laughing and drinking with someone of no account, someone who made her smile.

And behind his closed eyes he saw Sansa underneath him in bed, legs wrapped around his hips, arms wrapped around his neck. She was gently gnawing on his bottom lip and gasping a little as he fucked her slow.

His eyes flew open.

 _Stop it_.

But he couldn’t stop. It was the only thing he knew anymore. The lie was only thing he believed for true.

He roared into the sea air and then turned on his boot heel, back toward his bunk, no more ready to sleep than he had been when he came up on deck in the first place.

_They’re mine._

_Mine._

_MINE._

He’d contented himself for so long with his fool dreams of them, and that was more than he deserved to have, but as the ship sailed ever northward, his longing for them—his madness, his deranged desire to claim them as his—seemed to rise along with the coldest winds of winter.

_I want my wife and daughter back._


End file.
